[Myka]

Tigger Pods from Reed Mariculture are perfectly good to use for Mandarin food, and are more easily available than Tisbe copepods. Check your LFS for Tiggers (they will be in a fridge).

A 40-gallon tank is likely to be too small to sustain a Mandarin that does not eat prepared foods. I would suggest you set up a smaller tank, like a 10 or 20-gallon with some mature live rock, add some pods, and add a feeding station. A feeding station will be a small glass jar or dish. Everyday add 2-3 frozen brine shrimp to the feeding station, and siphon it out at the end of the day if he doesn't eat it. At first, he won't eat the food at all. Once a week you can add 1/2 bottle of Tigger Pods to the tank too. I've been able to train several Mandarins this way in 2-3 weeks. Make sure you start off with a big, fat Mandarin that recently arrived at the LFS. The longer they go without food the less likely they are to start feeding, so get them fresh!

After they are eating brine shrimp well you can start mixing in small frozen mysis shrimp to their dish. Once they are eating both, remove the dish, and squirt (with turkey baster) food near the sand where the dish was. Then start moving the food around to different places so the Mandarin has to hunt. After several weeks in this tank the Mandarin should once again be nice and fat and eating readily when he will be ready to go into the display tank. He will know to hunt for the food, and you can squirt it in a corner that he likes where the other fish won't bother him much.

Many other fish will compete for food with the Mandarin as well. A Mandarin will do best in a tank with docile fish that won't quickly snap up all the food before the slow eating Mandarin can.